ABOUT THIS BOOKPlato's Critique of Impure Reason offers a dramatic interpretation of the Republic, at the center of which lies a novel reading of the historical person of Socrates as the "real image" of the good

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction. Misology and the Modern Academy
La raison oblige? 1 * Dogmatism and Skepticism 8
Misological Habits is5 The Significance of Plato 22
Plan and Method 28
Chapter 1. A Logic of Violence 41
Where Do We Start? 41 . Shadows ofJustice 46
The Power of Appearance 55 * Thrasymachus:
Relativism as Violence 64 . Common Good or
Good of Each? 73 . Crisis 74 * Argument as
Drama 78 � Shifting Horizons 81
Chapter 2. With Good Reason 85
The First Sailing 85 * The Twofold Nature of
Goodness 88 - Forms, Likenesses, and the Souls
That Love Them 93 � The Good as Cause of
Truth 104 � Approaches to the Good 107 * Intimate
Knowledge 118 * Knowledge and Love as Ascent 122
Surprised by Truth 135
Chapter 3. Breaking In 139
The Overburdened Image 139 . Keeping the Parts
Together 143 * Bringing Forth the Good 145
A Good Turn 164 * The "Perfect" Image 167
The Dramatic Structure of Knowledge 171
Chapter 4. On Being Invisible 176
An Altogether Different Level 176 * Socrates as a
Stand-in for the Good 179 * Seeing Through 188
Obedience unto Death 199 � Justice and
Obedience 20o8 . Showing the Philosopher's
Invisibility 216 � The Invisible Author 222
Chapter 5. The Truth Is Defenseless 226
Guarding Reason 226 - Real Knowledge and
Ecstatic Reason 228 � Good Communication 240
War and Battle 247 - The Indefensible Defense of the
Defenseless 269 � The "Noble Risk" of Ignorance 277
Coda: Restoring Appearances 283
Is Plato a Platonist? 283 - Contradiction in
Appearance 289 * Good Distance 300 * The Way
Up and the Way Down 307 - Conversio ad
phantasrnmata 318 * Socrates Redivivus 329
Plato Goes Down 334
Bibliography 337